Airmen contain fire on joint installation

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Melissa Phillips
  • 407th Air Expeditionary Group Public Affairs
ALI BASE, Iraq (AFPN) --  Firefighters with the 407th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron contained a fire on the Army side of the base Aug. 15, only hours after they assumed fire protection coverage here and for Base Camp Adder.

Six hours and 45 minutes after they officially took over, flames were shooting from a trailer behind the dining facility.

“We saved most of trailer and kept it from starting a fire in other trailers that are pretty close together,” said Senior Airman Chad Noyes, a 407th ECES firefighter, who is deployed from the North Dakota Air National Guard.

The 407th ECES fire protection previously covered only the flightline and some joint-response buildings like the dining facility and post exchange here.

Now, the Airmen provide fire protection for 8,000 U.S. servicemembers and coalition forces housed at Base Camp Adder, not just the 1,100 Airmen here.

To cover the larger area, Air Force firefighters with their vehicles and equipment from nearby Camp Cedar relocated here and swapped their duties with the contractors.

The 407th ECES took over the duties as a cost-effective measure for the military and because it made more logistical sense.

“The Air Force receives special training on flightline fires because of the unique metals and alloys found in aircraft fires,” said Senior Master Sgt. Michael Brown, 407th ECES deputy fire chief.

The materials react differently to fire and require special handling procedures. During a common structural fire, firefighters are taught to sweep the base of the fire to extinguish it.

On aircraft fires, they use foam and rain it down on the top of the fire to create a seal over any potential gasoline leaks and starve the fire from oxygen, he said.

So, grouping people together with similar training backgrounds lessens the likelihood of miscommunications, which can cause precious minutes to tick away.

Previously, Airmen and the contractors shared joint-response capabilities on four facilities, but their equipment was not interchangeable, and their styles and protocols were slightly different, especially on one critical detail.

Before the efforts of a few servicemembers during this rotation, the Army side did not have a 911 system and was required to use a longer telephone number.

“It took a lot of doing to get that done,” said Sergeant Brown, who is deployed from the Nevada Air National Guard. “It’s important because it reduces the response time from the initiation of any incident.”

“Any delay in response time can mean the difference between transferring a recoverable patient to medics instead of a corpse,” Sergeant Brown said.

Just a couple of days before the fire, the crew watched a training video on trailer fires.

“The training gets everyone’s attention because we have to rely on the information if it ever does happen,” Airman Noyes said. “It drives home the point that you always have to be prepared, and the training quickens our response time.”

Sergeant Brown said there is no time for second-guessing on scene.

“That’s what we live for (a chance to help others in crisis) and provide a bridge to people when they have a problem,” he said. “It humbles you to know we are the only thing people have left between their demise or the loss of all their material goods.”

There were no injuries from the fire and the cause is being investigated.